HomeGoods will be a good citizen

Over the past few months, you’ve likely heard that HomeGoods has been coordinating with the village of Lordstown to build a distribution facility, bringing a host of benefits to the area. There has been quite of bit of discussion in the news, around the community and through public meetings about our project. During this time, it has been our pleasure to work with the community and its leaders to create a successful industrial rezoning of our desired location, which is just off Interstate 80 and Ellsworth Bailey Road.

For anyone who still has questions about our proposed project and its potential impact for the community, we wanted to share a little more detail. We are excited about this project and believe it will be mutually beneficial to the people of Lords- town, the broader Mahoning Valley and HomeGoods.

Commitment

For those who are not familiar with HomeGoods stores, we deliver great value on an ever-changing selection of exciting top brands and home fashions from around the world, at prices generally 20 percent-60 percent below department and specialty store regular prices, every day. Our customers love our stores because they never know what kinds of treasures they will find for their homes. As a company, we have long been committed to giving back to the communities we serve. In order to serve our growing network of almost 700 stores, we have been looking for an additional distribution center location to support our business. After completing an evaluation process, which included an assessment of various other sites across the region with our team of engineers and other experts, we selected the Ellsworth Bailey Road location as the single location that met our criteria for our proposed 1.2 million-square-foot distribution center.

If we are able to build our distribution center as proposed, we believe the community will benefit from:

1,000 jobs. We expect to bring 1,000 jobs or more to the region within our first five years of operation, from entry-level roles to supervisory and manager positions in facility operations, human resources, information technology systems, finance and others. Our distribution centers provide many opportunities to those working there, and we are proud to have many examples of associates who started with us in entry-level positions and progressed into different roles over their careers with us.

Opportunities for college students. During this process, we’ve engaged with local colleges to explore developing internships and campus recruiting at these schools, similar to the kinds of programs we have developed with institutions near our other distribution center locations.

$500,000 to support Lords-town schools. We listened to the needs of the Lordstown Local School District and have offered to contribute $500,000 for projects that the school board has prioritized, in conjunction with building our distribution center as planned.

Land donation of at least 100 acres. Perhaps most importantly, we strive to be a good neighbor. We have said that throughout this process, and we mean it. We’ve carefully considered resident feedback, and we’ve adjusted our plans to address that feedback. As part of the development of this project, we plan to permanently give away a minimum of 100 acres of land on our site to a third-party environmental or conservancy organization that can maintain the land as buffer or conservation space. That land, together with the significant berm and swale along the perimeter of the property, will provide a natural, wooded barrier for nearby residents and further address the possibility of water runoff. In addition, our currently proposed project includes, for example, traffic infrastructure modifications, state of the art technology for fire-suppression systems and focused parking lot lighting, among other things.

HomeGoods has been in business for many years. We are proud of the great relationships we have in other communities where we have built distribution centers like this one. We are very optimistic about this project, and if we are able to complete our facility as planned, look forward to the economic and social benefits we believe it can provide for Lordstown and the surrounding areas.

We sincerely hope we will have the community’s support and look forward to working together with you in the months ahead.